MA S TER 

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AUTHOR: 


SEWALL,  FRANK 


TITLE: 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE 


PLACE: 


NEW  YORK 


DA  TE : 


1909 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 
PRESERVATION  DEPARTMENT 

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Sevvall,  Frank,  1857-1915. 

Beinc  and  existence;  a  philosophical  dincuscion, 
by  Frank  Gowall.  Kew  York,  LIcGeorge,  1909. 

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Being  and  Exigence 

A  Philosophical  Discussion 


By  Frank  Sewall 


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Being  and   Exigence 

A  Philosophical  Discussion 


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BY 

FRANK  SEWALL 

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ReifHnted  fi-om  THE  NEW  PHILOSOPHY 

E-  F.  Stroh,  Bryn  Athyn,  Pa^ 

J.  B.  McGeorge,  3  W.  29th  St.,  New  York 

1909 


K'ir 


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By  the  Same  Author 


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Reason^  in  Belief. — An  examination  into  the  rational  and  philosophic 
contents  of  the  Christian  faith.  London  :  Elliot  Stock.  260  pp. 
Price,  I1.25.     New  York  :    J.  B.  McGeorge,  3  W.  29th  St. 

Swedenborg  and  Modem  Idealism. — A  retrospect  of  philosophy 
from  KanTto  the  present  time.  London  :  J.  Spiers.  New  York 
as  above.     Price,  $1.25. 

The  New  Metaphysics* — Or  the  Law  of  End,  Cause  and  Effect.  Lon- 
don:   J.  Spiers.     New  York  as  above.     Price,  $1.25. 

The  Ethics  of  Service, — Or  the  Moral  Law  of  Use.  London:  J. 
Spiers.     New  York  as  above.     Price,  25  cents,  paper. 

Dante  and  Swedenborg. — And  Other  Essays  in  the  New  Renaissance. 
London :    J.  Spiers.    New  York  as  above.    Price,  $1.25. 


ii 


Contents 


ji  ji 


i. 


I. 
II. 
III. 

IV. 
V. 
VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XI. 

XII. 

XIII. 

XIV. 


Being ...       9 

Existence ...  12 

Trinal  Monism 15 

The  Pragmatic  Test ;  or  the  World  as  We  Know  It 17 

The  First  Evolution 21 

God 23 

Life  and  Love    ...       25 

Love  is  Substance 29 

Wisdom  the  First  Form      30 

Divine  Personality   .       3^ 

Omnipotence,  Omnipresence^  Omniscience 33 

What  is  Order? 33 

The  Knowledge  of  Opposites 34 

"In   Space  Without  Spa'ce" 3S 


Foreword 


• 


'• 


In  this  series  of  papers  it  is  my  desire  to  examine  phil- 
osophically the  questions  relating  to  Being,  to  Existence,  to 
Creation,  to  Man  and  Man's  Relation  to  Deity;  to  find  in 
what  central  truths  the  three  planes  of  human  thought, — 
theology,  philosophy,  and  science  harmonize  and  are  at  one; 
and  so  to  arrive  at  a  recognition  of  God  as  abiding  in  and 
controlling,  with  the  perfect  and  peaceful  sway  of  infinite 
Love,  Wisdom,  and  Power,  the  whole  sphere  of  our  and  of 
all  existence. 


:0\ 


f 


•  V 


Being  and  Exigence 

A  PhUosophical  Discussion 


I.    BEING. 


Attention  is  first  called  to  the  most  fundamental  of  all  ques- 
tions— ^The  Nature  of  Being:  What  is  it,  to  Be? 

I  call  this  the  most  fundamental  of  all  questions  because  Be- 
ing constitutes  the  first  knowledge  of  man  and  is  that  fact  which 
nobody  can  deny  or  without  acknowledging  which  no  thought 
or  reasoning  whatever  is  possible.  In  order  to  reason  at  all 
there  must  be  a  reasoner,  therefore  something  is ;  if  only  the 
reasoner:  but  the  process  of  our  reason  involves  a  variety  of 
things  from  which  to  reason  and  about  which  to  reason ;  there- 
fore Being  must  comprise  many  things  besides  the  reason. 
As  this  is  that  universal  knowledge  with  which  all  must  start, 
our  first  inquiry  is  therefore  "What  is  Being:  what  is  it,  to 

be  r 

It  may  seem  to  many,  at  first  glance,  that  this  question  is 
quite  unnecessary  since  their  idea  of  Being  is  a  simple  one,  com- 
mon to  all  minds  alike;  but  a  little  reflection  will  show  that 
this  is  not  the  case.  Being  means  to  some  minds  what  it  does 
not  to  others.  A  child  may  think  there  are  no  stars  in  the 
heavens  at  mid-day  because  we  cannot  see  them.  A  savage 
might  say  that  the  earth  w  because  he  can  tread  on  it  and  that 
above  the  earth  nothing  is  because  there  is  nothing  to  tread 
on;  the  early  Ionic  philosophers  taught  that  all  being  was 
originally  some  one  of  the  physical  elements ;  later  the  Eleatic 
school,  that  all  being  was  mind  and  what  was  not  mind  was 
not  anything.  So  we  see  that  Being  itself  must  be  defined  and 
must  therefore  be  capable  of  some  kind  of  analysis.  Even  if 
we  say  that  "To  be"  is  a  simple  idea ;  prior  to  the  idea  of  be- 
ing anything  or  nothing,  of  being  this  or  that,  the  question  will 
still  arise,  what  is  it  for  a  thing  to  he?  Is  it  for  instance  to  be 
in  intention,  or  in  thought,  or  in  fact?  And  if  the  latter 
only,  then  what  is  meant  by  the  statement,  which  no  one  can 


10 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


deny,  that  every  work  of  man  involving  thought  or  desire 
must  have  **been"  in  mind  before  it  could  have  acquired  any  be- 
ing in  matter? 

Now,  when  we  talk  of  a  thing  s  being  we  are  not  consider- 
ing the  simple  idea  of  being  but  we  qualify  it  by  the  idea  of 
the  thing  it  is.  Thus  to  the  universal  substance  we  give  a 
particular  form  and  thus  make  a  thing  of  it.  To  get  at  the 
idea  of  being  pure  and  simple,  without  even  calling  it  sub- 
stance, we  must  take  away  therefore  all  idea  of  form  or  of  any 
thing,  or  any  possible  object  of  thinking,  as  this  or  that.  We 
then  have  left  the  idea,  or  at  least  the  name,  Being.  Is  there 
such  a — we  can  not  call  it  thing  because  it  is  not  things  we 
are  here  trying  to  name, — but  is  there  any  real  content  to 
this  name — ^pure  abstract  Being?  Surely  "there  is  no  other 
name  we  can  give  it  for  that  would  be  to  qualify  it — to  make 
it  the  being  of  some  thing.  But  that  there  is  such  a  reality 
we  are  compelled  to  adrhit.  Out  of  no  Being  no  being  could 
come.  Wle  can  not  conceive  of  Being  having  a  beginning  or 
having  an  end.  As  far  as  thought  goes  it  goes ;  and  if  thought 
stops  it  still  knows  by  intuition  that  Being  reaches  beyond. 
Nameless,  quantity-less,  indefinable  as  this  concept  of  Pure  Be- 
ing is,  there  are  two  things  we  therefore  can  assert  of  it  be- 
sides its  self-necessary  reality.  And  these  are  its  infinity  and 
its  eternity. 

To  this  concept  or  primary  reality  Swedenborg  therefore 
gives  the  name  the  Esse  and  he  says  its  sole  attributes  are 
**the  infinite"  and  ''the  eternal."  He  also  calls  it  the  Ipsum, 
or  the  essential  self — but  this  is  evidentlv  in  distinction, 
from  that  which  is  not  self  and  implies  the  idea  of  the  other. 
To  the  Esse,  the  pure  Being,  we  therefore  can  attach  only  the 
ideas  of  the  infinite  and  the  eternal.  But  even  these  ideas  are, 
in  this  connection,  only  negative  terms  and  assert  rather 
our  inability  than  our  ability  to  attach  any  form  or  any  idea  to 
simple  Being.  For  in  calling  it  infiinite  we  merely  say  that  we 
can  give  it  no  bounds  in  space ;  and  in  calling  it  eternal,  that 
we  can  give  it  no  bounds  in  time. 

But  the  question  now  arises :  is  this  pure  Being,  of  which  we 
can  form  no  idea,  while  we  are  convinced  of  its  eternal  reality, 
all  the  Being  there  is?  Is  this  the  Being  we  are  attempting 
philosophically  to  analyze? 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


II 


That  it  is  riot  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  there  is  Being 
which  we  consciously  perceive  and  which  we  can  definitely 
know  and  which  we  can  see  and  touch.  This  also,  although  not 
infinite  and  eternal,  is  nevertheless  to  be  classed  under  the 
term  Being,  and  must  come  within  the  range  of  our  inquiry  as 
to  what  Being  is.  When  we  proceed  to  examine  Being,  there- 
fore, the  word  does  not  mean,  mere  Esse,  mere  pure  Being 
in  the  abstract  of  which  we  can  only  say  that  it  is  infinite  and 
eternal ;  but  it  means  "All  that  is.'' 

Now  the  moment  we  begin  to  examine  Being  in  the  sense  of' 
"All  that  is"  we  leave  the  idea  of  abstract  Being  and  take  up, 
instead,  the  idea  of  Existence ;  and  we  find  that  in  reality  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  Being  that  does  not  exist.  While  we  can 
form  perhaps  a  dim  conception  of  such  Being  apart  from  our 
conception  of  its  particular  form  of  existence,  still  we  can  not 
conceive  of  even  that  pure  Being  as  not  existing.  But  existing 
Being  is  the  being  that  we  know ;  it  is  the  "All  that  is ;"  it  is 
the  Being  of  which  we  form  a  part ;  it  is  the  Being  in  other 
parts,  In  all  the  infinite  variety  of  parts  and  kinds  which  we 
know  through  our  senses.  We  dare  not  say,  therefore,  that 
we  do  not  know  Being  or  what  Being  is,  since  we  do  know 
it  in  that  existence  which  is  everywhere  manifest  to  us. 

We  are  quite  ready  to  agree  with  the  Agnostic's  idea  that 
of  the  pure  Being,  which  we  abstractly  conceive  of,  the  Esse 
itself,  we  can  know  nothing,  save  to  deny  it  any  limit  in  time 
or  space.  But,  far  from  this  being  the  ."All  that  is,"  this 
imagined  Being,  if  it  were  without  existence  would  be  mere 
nothing,  a  pure  fiction  of  the  mind.  Says  Swedenborg:  "An 
Esse  without  a  substance  is  a  mere  imaginary  entity,  substance 
being  a  subsisting  entity ;  and  whatever  is  a  substance  is  like- 
wise a  form,  for  substance,  too,  without  a  form  is  a  mere 
imaginary  entity."  (T.  C.  R,  20.)  Also  "An  Esse  unless  it 
exist  is  nothing,  and  in  like  manner  an  existere  is  nothing  un- 
less it  be  derived  from  its  esse.  Wherefore  granting  one  we 
must  grant  the  other." 

However  much  then  the  Agnostic  may  deny  his  ability  to 
know  a  pure  Being  which  does  not  exist,  we  say  that  with 
that  conception  we  have,  whether  in  science  or  philosophy  or 
revelation,  nothing  to  do.     But  neither  can  the  Agnostic  any 


/ 


12 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


fe' 


more  than  ourselves  deny  that  all  Being  that  is,  does  exist,  and 
that  therefore  it  has  form  and  must  come  more  or  less  within 
the  range  of  our  ability  to  know;  since  the  existing  world  is 
that  of  which  we  form  a  conscious  part  and  of  which  we  are 
conscious  and  intelligent  observers. 

Taking  then  the  existing  world,  the  "All  that  is,"  as  the  ob- 
ject of  our  philosophic  study,  we  cannot,  (even  as  Agnostics), 
say  that  we  know  nothing  of  its  inmost  reality  until  we  can 
say  that  pure  Being  or  this  inmost  reality  does  not  manifest 
itself  in  this  its  own  existence.  If  existence  is  the  existing 
of  that  which  is,  then  in  knowing  existence  we  must  know  in 
some  manner  or  degree  that  which  is,  or  the  inmost  reality. 


II.    EXISTENCE. 

Taking  then  the  word  Being  in  the  practical  sense  of  the 
Existing,  of  the  ''All  that  is,"  and  thus  stepping  out  upon  the 
plane  of  a  real  world  of  knowledge  and  not  of  imaginary 
entities  which  practically  are  nothing,  we  find  that  this  Being, 
this  ''All  that  is" — far  from  being^beyond  analysis  or  definition 
— defines  itself  with  absolute  unerring  accuracy  to  every  mind 
that  gives  a  little  careful  thought  to  any  simple  object  of  its 
knowledge.  For  we  find  that  in  the  very  existence  of  anything 
there  is  necessarily  involved  three  entirely  discrete  degrees  of 
Being,  and  that  to  know  Being  is  at  the  same  time  to  know 
these  three  degrees. 

The  existence  of  anything  which  can  be  an  object  of  our 
knowledge  involves  in  itself :  I.  the  End  or  purpose  from  which 
it  ever  came  to  be ;  II.  the  Cause,  or  the  manner  how  it  came 
to  be ;  and  finally  III.  the  Effect,  or  the  thing  itself  as  it  is. 
Whether  we  take  the  world  as  a  whole,  or  any  least  part  of  it, 
we  find  there  is  this  involution  in  it  of  these  three  degrees  of  be- 
ing: the  end,  the  cause  and  the  effect.  If  we  take  the  "All  that 
is"  as  the  existence  we  are  to  study,  we  find,  by  the  very 
necessary  laws  of  our  thinking,  involved  in  it  these  three  de- 
grees of  Being :  the  end  or  the  Why  of  its  existence,  the  cause 
or  the  How  of  its  existence,  the  effect  or  the  What  of  its  ex- 
istence. Nay,  if  we  ascend  to  God,  the  supreme  object  of  all 
contemplation  and  all  knowledge — and  regard  Him  not  as 
an  abstract  nothing,  but  as  an  existing  God — ^we  then  must 


i 


} 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


13 


know  Him  in  His  own  infinite  but  self-derived  degrees — 
namely  God  in  that  which  is  His  own  end  or  purpose  of  being ; 
God  in  His  own  manner  or  Laws  of  existence,  and  God  in  His 
own  Proceeding  or  outstanding  effects. 

I  have  said  that  these  three  degrees  are  involved  one  within 
the  other.  Thus  that  the  end  is  in  the  cause,  and  that  the  end 
and  the  cause  of  anything  are  in  the  effect  or  the  thing  itself. 
Thus : 

Illustration  A. 

In  speech :  in  every  sentence  spoken,  that  is,  in  any  speech  as 
an  effect,  there  is  the  thought  which  shaped  and  articulated 
it,  which  is  its  cause;  and  there  is  the  affection  or  desire 
which  prompted  it,  which  is  its  end.  Thus  in  the  sentence 
spoken  there  are  involved  the  three  planes  of  its  existence; 
the  affection  is  in  the  thought,  and  the  affection  and  the 
thought  are  in  the  words  as  uttered  and  as  producing  an  actual 
material  effect  on  the  air.  Such  being  the  involution  of  being 
in  the  sentence  or  in  the  effect,  the  evolution  of  being  will 
be  the  extraction  of  the  meaning  of  the  sentence  from  the 
words  spoken — which  we  may  call  the  study  of  the  cause,  or 
the  manner  how  of  the  sentence;  and  then  the  extraction  of 
the  feeling  or  the  purpose  that  lay  behind  the  meaning,  which 
we  may  call  the  study  of  the  end  {Endzweck),  the  motive  or 
"reason  why"  of  the  utterance. 

Illustration  B. 

If  we  pick  up  a  pebble  from  the  pathway,  the  same  trinity, 
eternal  and  divine,  lies  involved  in  its  existence  as  in  the  na- 
ture of  man,  or  as  in  the  whole  existing  world.  The  pebble  as 
we  feel  and  see  it  is  effect;  but  the  effect  never 
would  have  been  but  for  a  cause,  and  that  cause 
never  would  have  been  but  for  an  end  or  purpose 
that  prompted  it.  The  evolution  of  the  real  being 
of  the  pebble  is  the  unfolding  of  a  cause  within  the  out- 
ward material  shape  and  the  unfolding  of  an  end  or  destined 
use  within  the  cause.  For  just  as  truly  as  there  can  be  no  ef- 
fect without  a  cause,  as  truly  can  there  be  no  cause  without  an 
end  or  purpose  that  brought  it  about.    Therefore  the  end  itself 


y 


M 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


may  also  be  and  is  sometimes  called  the  First  or  Final  cause 
(from  Finis,  the  end)  in  distinction  from  the  intermediate  de- 
gree between  end  and  effect  which  we  then  may  designate  as 
the  instrumental  or  efficient  cause,  being  that  by  which  the  end 
proceeds  to  its  effect. 

Inasmuch  therefore  as  the  existence  of  everything  that  is 
involves  these  three  degrees  of  Being,  effect,  cause  and  end, 
the  knowledge  of  anything,  to  be  a  true  or  complete  knowledge, 
must  embrace  the  knowledge  of :  I.  its  ultimate  form  as  effect ; 
II.  of  its  existence  as  cause ;  and  III,  of  its  being  as  end.  Any- 
thing short  of  this  cannot  be  called  a  complete  knowledge  of 
anything,  much  less  a  philosophy. 

To  know  a  thing  philosophically  we  must  be  able  to  answer 
the  three  questions  about  it:  Why?  How?  What?  From 
what  end  or  purpose  does  it  have  its  being:  by  what  law  or 
cause  does  it  derive  its  special  existence?  What  has  this  end, 
by  means  of  the  cause,  produced  in  effect?  To  answer  these 
questions  when  asked  regarding  the  "All  that  is"  is  the  aim 
of  a  true  philosophy. 

It  will  be  seen  readily  that  to  study  existence  from  Being 
only,  and  so  as  end  only  or  as  an  abstraction — would  be  no 
philosophy:  no  more  is  it  a  true  science  or  knowing  to  study 
existence  as  mere  effect.  The  only  complete  knowledge  is  a 
knowledge  of  effects  from  their  causes  and  of  causes  from 
their  ends.  The  only  true  knowledge  of  the  world  or  of  ex- 
istence is  therefore  the  knowledge  of  the  plane  of  effect  from 
the  plane  of  cause  and  the  plane  of  cause  from  that  of  end. 

Science  is  therefore  entirely  justified  in  limiting  the  range 
of  its  investigation  to  the  plane  of  effect  or  what  it  calls  the 
"facts"  of  sensuous  experience,  and  so  in  making  the  world 
of  time  and  space  the  whole  world  of  its  handling  and  report- 
ing. The  only  error  would  be  in  claiming  that  such  a  knowl- 
edge is  the  complete  knowledge  of  the  world,  and  that  the  all 
of  Being  contains  nothing  intelligible  beyond  the  reach  ^of  this 
kind  of  investigation.  Again  science  is  quite  right  in  saying, 
as  Aristotle  taught  regarding  Plato's  ideas,  that  a  world  of 
ideas  not  embodied  in  existing  things  would  be  only  an  idle 
and  useless  world ;  and  that  therefore  the  place  to  study  ideas 
is  in  the  existent  phenomenal  world.     But  this  is  quite  differ- 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


15 


ent  from  denying  the  reality  of  ideas  and  causes  as  constituting 
a  degree  of  being  discrete  from  that  of  the  effect,  although 
residing  within  the  plane  of  effect,  like  the  watch  spring  be- 
hind the  movement  of  the  hands  upon  the  face. 

III.    TRINAL  MONISM. 

Having  glanced  briefly  at  what  is  involved  in  the  idea  of  Be- 
ing, as  an  object  of  thought,  it  will  be  profitable  here  to  con- 
sider briefly  another  fundamental  concept — which  is  prac- 
tically the  same  but  at  the  present  day  is  discussed  under  an- 
other name,  namely,  the  Nature  of  the  One.  What  is  Mon- 
ism? If  all  is  reduceable  to  a  One,  what  is  that  One?  Is  it 
material?  Is  it  spiritual?  Is  it  without  quality  whatever? 
Is  it  something  or  nothing?  If  something — how  are  we  to 
conceive  of  it? 


THE    NATURE    OF    THE    ONE. 

The  most  mischievous  error  in  the  conception  of  the  One 
is  that  this  primal  principal  of  universality,  unity  and  har- 
mony from  which,  or  in  which,  all  things  have  their  real  being 
is  an  Absolute.  For  it  is  clear  that  there  is,  or  can  be,  no  ab- 
solute One — whether  as  considered  numerically  or  in- 
trinsically. For  the  Absolute  means  the  unrelated;  but  One 
as  the  first  of  a  series  is  certainly  related  to  all  that  follows 
and  has  no  numerical  meaning  whatever  except  as  related  to  a 
series. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  try  to  think  of  One  not  as  first  of 
a  series  but  as  all  absolutely,  then  there  is  nothing  to  make 
it  one,  nothing  to  distinguish  it  from  the  simple  nothingness 
of  the  unthought.  So  if  we  discuss  the  One  at  all,  we  must 
first  begin  by  distinguishing  it — by  conceiving  it  as  an  object 
of  thought :  and  this,  of  course,  renders  it  no  longer  an  ab- 
solute. 

One,  intrinsically  regarded,  then,  is  not  absolute.  For  if 
we  regard  it  even  most  abstractly  as  Being,  or,  as  the  whole 
of  being,  it  is  related  to  the  not-being,  and,  as  a  whole,  is 
related  to  its  parts ;  and  in  analyzing  Being,  in  order  to  dis- 
tinguish it  from  nothing,  we  have  had  to  give  it  qualities,  that 

/ 


i6 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


is,  to  make  it  something — or  the  being  of  something  rather 
than  the  being  of  nothing.  This  being  of  something,  there- 
fore, has  a  nature — however  abhorrent  this  idea  may  be  to 
the  devotee  of  pure  Absohitism.  The  Absohite,  if  you  please 
to  call  it  so,  the  Primal  One — Pure  Being — has  a  nature,  a 
nahira,  that  is  a  becoming  something.  While  it  forever 
is,  it  is  also  forever  being  born ;  and  it  is  born  in  becoming 
something — or  from  a  state  of  simple  being  becoming  an  ex- 
istence. While  at  first,  considered  as  pure  Esse,  it  has  no 
conceivable  attributes  except  those  of  infinity  and  eternity, 
which  are  simply  the  absence  of  finition  or  qualification — it  is 
in  existence  that  Being  acquires  essentials  capable  of  being 
defined  or  thought  of.  Therefore,  the  stage  by  which  pure 
Being  exists,  or  becomes  the  Being  of  Something  is  a  stage 
of  definition.  Swedenborg  designates  as  the  first  "Finite" 
that  which  is  distinctly  conceived  and  born  of  the  Infinite  in 
the  making  of  a  world.  [See  Principia:  Ch.  II.  On  the  In- 
Unite:  Ch.  I.]  The  quality  of  that  first  motion  in  the  Infinite, 
w^hich  is  the  "point"  or  "first  simple,"  is  its  quality  of 
"finiting,"  that  is,  of  defining.  (See  Summary  of  Principia: 
II  :20.)  Thus  it  is  by  definition  that  things  become  and  defini- 
tion is  a  purely  mental  act.  Things  do  not  define  themselves. 
It  is  by  definition  that  things  or  something  exists  out  of  Be- 
ing; or  it  is  by  definition  that  Being  is  bom  (tiatum)  into 
existence  and  that  nature  (natura)  is:  just  as  it  is  by  the  Word 
that  all  things  were  made ;  and  it  is  by  definition  that  the  One 
becomes  an  existing  reality  to  our  thought.  But  the  nature  of 
the  Infinite  and  Eternal  One  must  be  that  which  it  has  by 
virtue  of  its  own  being  and  from  no  other  source  or  cause. 
It  must  be  a  nature  w^hich  is  intrinsic  to  the  being  and  be- 
coming of  any  thing  as  such. 

In  examining  into  this  nature  of  the  One,  as  necessary  and 
intrinsic,  we  found  in  our  discussion  in  the  last  chapter,  that 
this  nature  is  trinal,  in  that  it  involves  the  three  elements  of 
what  it  is,  how  it  is,  and  why  it  is.  In  other  words,  reduced 
to  a  formula  the  nature  of  every  thing  that  is,  involves  the 
three  principles,  the  End  from  which :  the  Cause  by  which :  and 
the  Effect  in  which  the  thing  exists.  No  thing  or  class  of 
things  not  even  the  infinite  One  exists,  except  as  something 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


17 


distinguishable  from  other  things — the  Infinite  as  distinguish- 
9,ble  from  the  things  contained  in  itself.  "God  is  infinite," 
says  Swedenborg,  "and  he  is  called  infinite  because  he  has  these 
infinite  things  in  himself;  quia  infinita  in  se  hahet."  This 
distinguishing  element  of  a  nature  or  of  a  thing  is  its  form; 
and,  therefore,  we  may  call  the  form,  the  cause  of  a  thing  be- 
cause it  is  what  makes  it  be  what  it  is  and  not  something 
else.  But  behind  this  form  or  instrumental  cause,  causa  ef- 
Hciens,  each  thing  must  have  an  originating  end  or  final  cause, 
causa  iinalis,  a  purpose  or  first  motion  which  conceived  the 
form  or  the  mode  of  causing  and  bringing  forth  the  effect. 

In  the  Infinite  itself  this  first  cause  is  the  real  causa  sui,  the 
Cause  of  Itself,  in  being  the  End  which  takes  form  in  the 
efficient  causes — as  Love  takes  form  in  Wisdom, — and  by 
these  proceeds  to  actualize  itself  in  effects.  But  the 
principle  is  true  of  animate  and  inanimate  things  alike;  of 
things  finite  or  of  the  Infinite.  A  thing  is  what  it  is  because 
of  its  cause,  and  its  cause  is  shaped  by  the  end  which  lies 
behind  or  within  it,  and  both  end  and  cause  reside  within  the 
effect  as  in  their  ultimate.  In  the  Infinite,  the  end  is  self- 
moved  or  self-originated — and  the  cause  is  self-caused  as 
having  that  first  end  in  it. 

In  finite  things,  the  ends  and  causes  are  secondary,  oj^rat- 
ing  from  the  essential  End  and  Cause  in  the  Infinite. 

Thus  the  End,  Cause  and  Effect,  pervade  each  and  every 
thing  of  the  universe  and  embrace  all  being  in  their  system 
of  trinal  Monism. 

IV.     THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST;  OR  THE  WORLD  AS 

WE  KNOW  IT. 


From  this  theoretical  statement  of  the  nature  of  the  One 
if  we  proceed  now  to  apply  this  principle  to  the  world  as  we 
know  it,  our  problem  reduces  itself  simply  to  seeking  in  crea- 
tion as  an  effect  the  inner  planes  of  cause  and  of  end. 

To  say  that  there  is  no  end,  and  that  there  is  no  cause,  and 
that  all  is  effect,  is  both -a  contradiction  of  terms  and  a  viola- 
tion of  the  principles  of  all  science.  For,  first,  if  the  effect 
exist,  there  must  be  a  cause,  since  there  can  be  no  effect  with- 
out cause ;  and,  secondly,  that  which  we  know  as  the  objective 


i8 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


world  or  as  matter  is  effect,  since  it  is  in  itself  void  of  every 
thing  which  is  causative  or  can  account  for  its  own  being. 
Moreover,  science  is  correctly  defined  as  a  knowledge  of 
facts  in  their  relations  to  law.  The  facts  themselves  are  not 
the  law;  the  facts  are  what  the  senses  perceive.  The  law  is 
what  the  intellect  deduces  or  comprehends.  One  apple  falling 
from  a  tree  does  not  make  a  law  of  gravitation ;  but  neither  do 
a  thousand  apples  falling  make  such  a  law  any  more  than  one. 
Each  apple  falling  is  simply  a  fact  by  itself,  having,  as  a  ma- 
terial phenomenon,  no  power  to  make  or  cause  others  to  fall. 
The  law  of  gravitation  is  something  which  the  ynind  perceives 
as  a  "way  how"  nature  is  made  to  act,  and,  as  it  is  the  mind 
and  not  the  senses  that  perceives  this  zvay  how,  as  "law," 
therefore  we  may  hold  that  the  law  exists  in  that  which  is 
not  nature,  but  is  in  nature  as  cause  is  in  its  eflFect,  or  as  the 
mind  is  in  the  body. 

Unless  matter  makes  itself  and  moves  itself,  therefore,  we 
must  look  somewhere  else  than  to  matter  for  that  which  is 
the  cause  of  matter  and  of  physical  locomotion. 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  recognition  of  that  second  law 
of  the  degrees  of  being,  viz. :  that  besides  being  three  in  num- 
ber,—end,  cause,  and  eflFect,— these  are  entirely  distinct,  one 
from  another,  and  can  by  no  means  be  confused,  merged  one 
into  the  other,  or  substituted  one  for  the  other.  In  the  in- 
finitely many  series  of  such  units  of  end,  cause  and  eflFect, 
embraced  in  the  whole  range  of  existence  from  God  down  to 
matter,  that  which  is  eflFect  in  one  series  may  serve  often  as 
end  in  another.  An  impression  received  in  my  mind  as  eflFect 
may  be  the  end  or  originating  cause  of  my  eflFort  to  produce 
the  sartie  or  a  diflFerent  eflFect  in  another ;  but  in  the  same  series 
the  end  must  be  end  and  never  cause  or  eflFect,  although  in 
these;  the  cause  must  be  always  cause  and  never  eflFlct,  al- 
though in  the  eflFect;  and  the  eflFect  must  remain  ever  eflFect 
and  only  eflFect,  although  in  this  eflFect  reside  both  the  end 
and  the  cause.  Moreover  the  cause,  although  not  the  end, 
yet  derives  all  its  existence  from  the  end;  and  the  eflFect, 
though  not  the  cause  or  the  end,  yet  derives  all  its  actuality 
from  the  reason  why,  and  the  manner  how  of  its  being.    For  if 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


19 


r> 


'9 


I 


there  was  no  purpose  of  its  being  and  no  manner  of  its  he- 
coming,  it  simply  would  never  have  existed. 

Does  some  one  say — but  here  is  an  elementary  atom  ;  it  simply 
is ;  there  was  no  purpose  for  making  it,  and  no  manner  or  law  of 
making  it  ?  But  science  to-day  has  stepped  far  beyond  the  stage 
of  being  satisfied  with  the  "simply  is"  of  knowledge.  Least  of 
all  is  it  satisfied,  as  the  restless  search  of  its  laboratories  testifies, 
with  the  name  of  an  ultimate  atom  or  indivisible  unit  of  mat- 
ter so  long  as  behind  the  name  are  playing  all  sorts  of  multi- 
tudinous forces  and  essences.  Whatever  name  be  given  to 
this  ultimate "  basic  unit  of  the  physical  universe,  whether 
atom  or  electron  or  ion  or  vortex  or  energic,  how  can  one 
call  that  a  simple  which  is  the  complex  of  innumerable  effects 
involved  in  its  production,  and  which  contains  in  itself 
potentialities  which  only  the  minds  of  countless  generations  will 
be  able  to  discover  and  put  to  use.  In  other  words,  no  atom 
is  so  simple  as  not  to  have  its  Why  and  its  How ;  and  the 
how  and  the  why  of  its  being  are,  with  its  actual  existence,  the 
discrete  degrees  that  together  constitute  it  an  atom. 

Illustration  C. 

In  relation  to  this  search  of  science  for  an  ultimate  per- 
manent reality  in  matter  the  following  extracts  from  an 
article  by  B.  Latour,  in  the  Cosmos  (Paris)  of  November  2, 
1907,  are  of  interest,  especially  to  the  student  of  Swedenborg's 
Principia  with  its  distinctly  stated  theory  of  the  successive 
degrees  of  atmospheres  and  their  respective  forces  and  func- 
tions, viz.,  the  atmospheric  air,  the  ether,  and  the  aura : 

"Not  long  since,"  says  Mr.  Latour,  "matter — the  chemical 
atom — appeared  as  a  somewhat  complicated  structure,  of 
variable  form  according  to  the  chemical  elements  under  con- 
sideration— the  carbon  atom  was  different  from  that  of  hydro- 
gen, that  of  gold,  etc. ;  and  these  structural  differences  of  the 
atomic  elements  corresponded  to  differences  in  their  physical 
and  chemical  properties.  Side  by  side  with  matter,  all  phy- 
sicists agreed  in  recognizing  the  existence  of  a  medium  hav- 
ing special  properties — the  ether — in  which  ordinary  matter 
is  plunged.     This  etheric  medium  is  indispensable  to  explain 


/ 


20 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


the  propagation  of  the  vibratory  movements  that  constitute 
Hght,  radiant  heat,  and  electric  waves.  Matter  and  ether 
were  supposed  to  be  indissolubly  linked  together,  and  mutually 
interpenetrable,  but  while  they  entered  in  common  into  divers 
physical  phenomena,  their  natures  remained  completely  dis- 
tinct and  they  seemed  irreducible,  the  one  to  the  other. 

"To-day  the  position  of  science  is  changed — another  step 
has  been  made  toward  unity.  Matter  and  ether  are  no  longer 
two  distinct  constituents  of  things,  and,  paradoxical  as  it  may 
seem,  matter  has  given  place  to  ether.  Matter,  which  for  the 
purpose  of  our  common  and  gross  experimentation,  appears 
to  be  in  some  sort  the  sole  fundamental  physical  reality,  is 
now  only  a  modification  of  the  ether.  Regarding  the  nature 
of  the  ether,  on  the  other  hand,  there  continues  to  be  deep 
mystery,  and  even  its  more  important  and  primordial  prop- 
erties are  the  subject  of  discussion  among  scientific  men,  some 
attributing  to  it  extreme  tenuity,  others  regarding  it  as  the 
densest  of  all  known  substances."     *     * 

"Modern  physicists  having  gone  still  further  in  the  path 
of  unification ;  they  tend  to  consider  the  .electron  itself  as  a 
local  modification  or  deformation  of  the  ether.  ...  On 
this  theory  the  forces  that  manifest  themselves  between  elec- 
trons are  attributed  to  a  sort  of  elasticity  in  the  ether,  of  which 
their  very  existence  is  a  proof 

"Thus,  owing  to  this  last  hypothesis  of  the  constitution  of 
the  electron,  the  ether,  that  was  devised  to  explain  certain 
phenomena  of  heat,  light,  and  electricity,  becomes  in  addition 
the  unifying  element  in  molecular  and  electromagnetic 
theories.  So,  also,  in  all  the  phenomena  of  the  physical  world 
we  meet  electrons 

"When  the  electrons  are  in  motion,  we  have  an  electric  cur- 
rent. There  are  certain  free  electrons  that  move  from  atom 
to  atom ;  this  is  the  case  of  a  current  in  the  interior  of  a  metal- 
lic conductor,  and  self-induction,  that  important  phenomenon 
that  appears  at  every  alteration  of  current,  is  nothing  but  the 
electromagnetic  inertia  of  the  electrons.  In  electrolysis,  or 
chemical  decomposition  by  electricity,  we  have  a  different 
kind  of  current,  due  to  the  movement  of  the  ions  into  which 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


21 


i 


> 


the  substance  is  decomposed.  An  ion,  on  the  new  theory,  is 
a  chemical  atom  or  group  of  atoms  having  electrons  in  excess 
(in  which  case  it  is  electrically  negative)  or  in  deficiency 
(when  it  is  positive).  These  electrified  particles  are  set  in 
motion  in  an  electric  field,  and  move  toward  the  electrodes 
plunged  in  the  fluid  to  be  decomposed. 

"When  the  electrons  vibrate,  they  generate  in  the  surround- 
ing ether  electromagnetic  waves,  which  include  those  of  light 
and  radiant  heat.  If  an  electron  is  suddenly  arrested  in  its 
movement,  there  is  an  electric  shock  that  travels  through  the 
ether  like  an  explosive  wave  through  air;  this  gives  rise  to 
the  X-rays." 

And  the  writer  concludes  with  the  admirable  and,  it  would 
seem,  only  rational  accounting  for  so  wonderful  an  evolution  of 
media  and  forces,  namely,  in  a  divine  disposition  or  manner- 
how  in  their  very  coming  into  existence. 

"In  this  bold  and  triumphant  flight  of  science  toward  a 
larger  and  more  comprehensive  synthesis,  we  may  detect  a 
homage — perhaps  too  unconscious — to  the  unity  of  divine 
truth  and  to  the  simplicity  of  that  eternal  wisdom  which,  at 
the  basis  of  the  created  universe,  has  disposed  all  things 
regularly,  in  number,  weight,  and  measure." — Translation 
made  for  The  Literary  Digest. 

V.    THE  FIRST  EVOLUTION. 

We  have  in  our  study  of  Pure  Being  or  the  Esse  seen  that 
there  are  but  two  attributes  which  can  be  assigned  to  it  and 
these  in  their  negative  sense  only,  namely,  infinity  and  eternity ; 
in  naming  which  we  merely  confess  our  inability  to  assign  any 
bound  to  Being  either  in  time  or  in  space.  In  other  words  we 
confess  our  inability  to  define  it.  And  this  is  also  the  claim 
of  the  Agnostics.  But  the  new  philosophy  says  what  the  Ag- 
nostics must  also  admit  on  candid  reflection,  that  pure  Being 
or  Esse  must  have  its  existence ;  that  all  being  must  exist ;  and 
that  when  being  becomes  existence  then  it  assumes  a  how  or 
manner  of  being;  it  becomes  a  something ;  it  has  qualities ; 
form :  knowable  properties.  Through  this  existence  of  Being 
only  do  we  know  that  there  is  Being.    The  attributes  eternal 


\ 


a 


22 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


and  infinite  as  applied  to  Esse  are  empty  negatives.  If  we  try 
to  think  of  them  the  brain  swoons.  To  think  the  eternal  or 
the  endless  merely  as  negatives  is  like  trying  to  breathe  in  a 
vacuum.  It  strangles  thought.  Whereas  these  very  attributes 
when  transferred  into  the  reasonable  degree  of  the  Existere 
become  no  longer  negations  but  thinkable  attributes.  The 
eternal  now  means  the  embracing  of  all  times  without  being, 
itself,  of  time,  or  qualified  by  time ;  and  the  infinite  means,  con- 
taining infinite,  that  is,  all  things  in  itself. 

*'Deus  infinitus  est"— says  Swedenborg,  ''quia  infinita  in*se 
habet. — "  So  in  proceeding  from  the  Esse  to  the  Existere  of 
Being  we  proceed  from  the  unthinkable  to  the  thinkable.  The 
Being  as  Esse  is  the  fundamental  of  sense,  of  our  feeling  of  a 
thing:  the  existence  is  the  fundamental  of  our  thought  about 
the  thing.  We  feci  a  thing  to  be ;  we  think  of  a  thing's  exist- 
ence in  thinking  of  its  qualities.  We  feel  that  whatever  is,  is : 
but  we  do  not  know  zi^hat  the  thing  is  until  it  exists.  We  know 
the  quality  of  Being  only  when  it  becomes  the  Being  of  some- 
thing. ^ 

The  first  evolution  is  therefore  from  a  feeling  to  a  thought: 
from  our  feeling  of  that  which  is,  to  a  thought  of  idiat  that 
is,  which  is. 

In  this  we  step  therefore  not  from  the  definite  to  the  indefi- 
nite but  the  reverse.  It  is  from  the  unknowable  to  the  know- 
able  or  the  thinkable  that  we  step  in  coming  to  our  conception 
of  God.  For  God  in  human  conception  is  not  an  absolute,  but 
rather,  is  Being  which  exists  under  certain  definite  knowable 
•qualities.  It  is  also  God  alone  who  makes  Being  from  being 
no  thing  to  being  some  thing,  to  h^ve  form,  to  be  visible  to  our 
thought,  and  thus  intelligible.  Instead  of  being  the  Unknow- 
able, God  is  therefore  essentially  the  first  Knowable  evolution 
and  manifestation  of  Being.  For  God  is  not  only  the  first 
substance,  but  also  the  first  Form.  In  God  the  first  Esse  be- 
comes the  first  Existere,  the  first  End  becomes  the  First  Cause : 
the  first  Motive  becomes  the  first  Law.  God  from  unknowable 
Esse  becomes  knowable  intelligible  Existence. 


, 


•-ILO 


•i  M 


<» 


f 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


VI.     GOD. 


23 


From  the  doctrine  of  the  Esse  we  proceed  therefore  to  that 
of  the  Existere.  From  Being  to  the  being  a  somewhat, — to 
having  qualities.  The  Being  with  qualities — or  Being  as  a 
conceivable  and  knowable  somewhat  is  God.  From  the  con- 
sideration of  pure  or  abstract  Being  we  come  to  the  study  of 
God. 

We  are  not  to  conceive  of  God  as  therefore  secondary  to  Be- 
ing or  derivable  from  Being;  but  rather  that  the  underived, 
the  self-existent  Being  becomes  of  necessity  itself  the  know- 
able  God,  or,  that  the  Esse  necessarily  exists.  It  is  the  same 
as  with  substance  and  form,  or  as  end  with  cause,  while  sub- 
stance may  be  conceived  of  and  named,  in  the  abstract,  without 
form,  that  is  under  the  only  two,  and  these  negative  attributes, 
of  infinity  and  eternity.  The  substance  in  becoming  anything 
makes  the  concept  of  its  form  just  as  necessary  to  us  as  the 
concept  of  the  substance  itself.  The  thing  conceived  of  is 
therefore  substance  and  form,  and  cannot  be  otherwise. 

So  is  God  at  once  Esse  and  Existere ;  we  are  compelled  by  the 
very  necessity  of  our  thinking  or  as  preliminary  to  any  thought 
to  admit  the  infinite  and  eternal  Being  or  Esse ;  but  the  moment 
we  form  that  esse  with  qualities  it  exists,  and  that  existence  of 
the  esse  is  God  as  object  of  our  thought.  God  is  therefore  not 
to  be  thought  of  as  existence  derived  from  prior  Being,  even 
though  we  have  to  think  consecutively:  but  God  is  in  reality, 
i.  e.,  independent  of  our  thought  the  eternally  Existing  Esse. 

So  in  the  discrete  degrees  end,  cause  and  efifect,  end  may  be 
conceived  of  as  an  abstraction  but  it  does  not  exist  as  such;, 
for  an  end,  to  be  an  end,  must  be  the  "End  in  View,"  must 
look  to  some  effect  and  this  through  some  means  or  cause. 
Thus,  when  existing  or  when  actual,  it  is  end  causing  effect. 
The  cause  is  not  derived  from  the  end  as  something  remote 
but  it  is  the  end  causing.  In  the  same  manner  God  is  the  Esse 
existing. 

But  why  must  Esse  exist,  or  why  must  Being  thus  be  some- 
thing ;  or  what  is  the  same  thing,  why  must  there  be  a  God  ? 
We  have  seen  that  we  know  that  being  is,  or  that  the  con- 


^ 


\ 


24 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


25 


cept  of  infinite  eternal  Being  is  fundamental  to  ot^r  thinking 
or  knowing  any  thing.  But  besides  this  universal,  fundamental 
concept  we  also  know  things  as  being, — the  finite,  visible  and 
tangible  objects  of  our  senses.  For  instance:  We  not  only 
know  by  consciousness  or  inmost  perception  that  there  is  and 
always  was  and  will  be  Being  to  which  we  can  set  no  bounds, 
but  we  also  know  through  our  senses  the  particular,  the  bound- 
ed things  that  are.  Now  these  particular  things  that  are,  are 
or  exist  because  of  their  possessing  some  thing  of  that  original 
and  boundless  being:  For  they  either  i.  derive  thence  their  be- 
ing ;  or  II.,  they  have  sprung  out  of  nothing ;  or  in.,  finally  they 
are  themselves  eternal  and  self  originating. 

Now  we  cannot  admit  either  of  the  two  latter  assertions, 
and  we  are  thus  compelled  by  our  very  knowledge  of  particular 
things  to  admit  some  universal  Being  which  is  Being  in  itself, 
and  self  existent.  The  admission  of  universal  Being  is  as 
necessary  as  the  admission  of  particular  things.  Our  knowl- 
edge or  our  power,  to  know,  demands  them  both. 

We  have  thus  before  us  the  imiversal  Being,  the  all  that  is, 
in  two  discrete  degrees  which  are  undeniable.  We  have  found 
ourselves  compelled  to  admit  on  the  one  hand  universal,  un- 
created, primal  Being,  or  the  Being  conceived  of  in  the  relation 
of  origin  and  end  of  all  else :  and  we  have  on  the  other  hand 
this  ''all  else'  or  this  Being  on  the  plane  of  eflfects  or  of  particu- 
lar finite  things. 

,  Now  if  there  were  no  finite  things,  no  particular  beings,  then 
the  original  Being  or  Esse  might  be  regarded  as  abiding  in  it- 
self, without  conceivable  form,  as  neither  moving  nor  giving 
motion,  and  so  as  neither  desiring,  causing,  creating  nor  pro- 
ceeding. But  we  know  that  particular  finite  and  created  things 
do  exist :  we  know  that  Being  is  not  merely  end,  if  that  were 
possible  now  that  the  Esse  assumes  the  relation  of  cause  to  an 
eflFect,  Our  knowledge,  too,  of  being  as  eflFect,  or  of  being  as 
created,  necessitates  an  admission  of  Being  as  Creator. 

It  is  now  that  pure  Being  or  the  Esse  assumes  a  relation  to 
that  which  is  outside  of  itself,  or  to  the  being  as  finite.  It  is 
now^  that  the  Esse  assumes  the  relation  of  cause  to  an  eflfect 
of  creator  to  a  created.  As  such  it  of  necessity— ^.r-uf.y,  1.  e., 
stands  forth  or  out  of  itself.     The  existence  of  the  Esse ;  or 


r 


the  standing  forth  of  pure  Being  into  a  Being  with  qualities, 
is  thus  necessarily  implied  in  our  knowledge  of  particular 
things.  Unless  we  deny  that  particular  things  exist  we  must 
admit  that  the  pure  esse  ex-ists,  as  it  is  alone  in  the  ex-istence 
of  the  pure  esse  that  particular  things  could  come  to  have  any 
being  at  all.  The  origin  of  all  finite  things  is  therefore  in  the 
existence  of  the  infinite  and  eternal  ESSE. 

But  in  this  existing  or  standing  forth,  the  esse,  as  I  have 
said,  becomes  qualified;  from  Being  universal  or  pure  Esse  it 
becomes  a  somewhat,  a  Being  with  qualities.  Now  what  are 
these  qualities  ?  What  are  the  necessary  attributes  of  necessary 
existence — those  qualities  without  which  esse  could  never 
stand  forth  and  assume  the  relation  of  end  to  cause  and  effect, 
or  of  creator  to  created  ? 

There  must  be  some  self -prompting  or  self -moving  force  in 
the  pure  esse  itself :  something  by  virtue  of  which  an  other  than 
self  is  created  for  the  very  purpose  that  the  pure  Esse  may  as- 
sume relation  to  that  which  is  not  self,  may  therefore  exist. 

This  impelling  force  in  the  esse  or  this  all  moving  and  all 
begetting  substance  is,  regarded  in  itself  Life,  or,  regarded  in 
its  relation  to  others,  Love. 

VII.    LIFE  AND  LOVE. 
Life  is  the  only  name  we  can  give  to  Being  when  we  regard 

« 

it  as  self  moving,  as  self  created,  simply :  but  when  we  regard 
it  as  the  primal  end,  the  first  cause  of  finite  being,  the  creator 
of  the  created,  then  we  can  give  it  only  the  name  of  this  eternal 
motion,  this  eternal  desire,  this  seeking  the  other  than  it- 
self,— Love. 

Swedenborg  says  that  all  men  know  that  life  is  but  they 
do  not  know  ivhat  life  is,  namely,  that  it  is  love!  Precisely 
as  the  Agnostics  may  say  that  ''pure  Being  eternal  and 
infinite  is,  but  we  do  not  know  what  it  is ;"  or  that  "there 
is  a  universal  life  and  a  source  of  life  to  finite  being  but  we  do 
not  know  what  that  life  is."  But  let  them  consider  what  alone 
that  life,  that  self-moved  and  moving  substance  must  be,  which 
can  cause  other  things  to  be,  or  make  Being  to  exist,  or  can  ac- 
count for  there  being  things  over  against   the    original    pure 


./ 


26 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


Being;— and  they  will  see  that  no  other  name  belongs  to  it 
but  that  of  love.  Science,  as  well  as  philosophy,  seeks  the  First 
Mover  inasmuch  as  the  distinctive  quality  of  matter  or  all 
created  substance  is  its  vis  inerticE  or  its  inability  to  move  it- 
self, even  though  it  be  constantly  and  wholly  in  motion,  /.  c, 
moved. 

Matter  might  almost  be  defined  as  that  order  of  being  which 
is  incapable  of  self-motion  and  can  only  be  moved.     But  by 
this  definition  we  would  by  no  means  imply  that  matter  is  not 
everywhere  in  motion.     Rather  we  would  say  with  modern 
science  that  matter  everywhere  exhibits  motion  the  more  in- 
teriorly it  is  examined ;  so  that  the  searcher  after  the  original 
atom  is  almost  brought,  with  the  late  Lord  Kelvin  in  one  stage 
of  his  inquiry,  to  define  matter  in  its  primitive  state  as  a  form 
of  motion  in  a  frictionless  space,  a  definition  recalling  Sweden- 
borg's  term— ''a  mode  of  motion  in  the  infinite.'*    Since  motion 
exists  and  matter  cannot  originate  it,  its  origin  must  be  sought 
in  a  cause  which  is  before  or  above  matter.  There  is  a  common 
agreement  to  call  this  moving  cause  a  force;  but  this  force 
must  be  self  originating ;  and  there  is  no  conceivable  self-origi- 
nating force  but  that  of  volition— the  will  acting.     The  will 
acting  is  what  Swedenborg  calls  love  and  this  he  names  the 
real  substance,  the  real  life,  the  real  first  Mover,  before  which 
nothing  was  and  without  which  nothing  could  have  come  into 
existence. 

I  have  said  that  pure  Esse  when  qualified  exists  or  stands 
forth  with  qualities :  and  that  pure  Being  now  stands  forth'  or 
exists  in  the  quality  of  love,  love  as  the  prime  substance,  force, 
motion  of  all  things  and  therefore  as  the  life.  It  would  seem 
as  if  love  were  therefore  an  attribute  or  a  quality  of  being 
rather  than  the  being,  the  first  substance  itself.  This  has  been 
a  common  conception  with  philosophers  and  theologians  here- 
tofore. Notwithstanding  the  Scriptural  declaration  that  "God 
is  love,"  the  theologians  have  clung  to  an  idea  that  God  is  a 
Being  that  loves  but  that  nevertheless  has  a  kind  of  funda- 
mental being  apart  from  and  independent  of  the  love.  In  the 
same  way  instead  of  holding  that  God  is  life  they  have  con- 
ceived of  God  as  substance  having  life  as  an  attribute.     Di- 


' 


-«»V4 


.r> 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


27 


rectly  contrary  is  the  conception  of  the  new  philosophy,  that 
the  first  substance — the  Esse  as  existing — is  love  itself,  is  life 
itself.  If  these  are  qualities  or  attributes  of  pure  being  take 
them  away  and  there  is  no  being  left.  There  was  never  infinite 
Being  that  was  not  living  being;  there  was  never  infinite  Be- 
ing that  was  not  loving  Being.  The  love  and  the  life  are  in 
reality  identical  with  the  Being  although  in  our  minds 
and  in  our  speech  we  may  treat  of  Being  as  abstracted  from 
both.  Swedenborg,  thus  in  T.  C.  R.,  No.  36,  distinguishes  be- 
tween the  Esse  of  God  and  his  Essence.  *'We  have  made  a 
distinction  between  the  esse  of  God  and  his  essence  by  reason 
of  the  distinction  between  the  Infinity  of  God  and  his  love ; 
infinity  being  a  term  applicable  to  the  esse  of  God  and  love  to 
his  essence ;  for  the  esse  of  God  is  more  universal  than  his  es- 
sence and  the  infinity  of  God  is  more  universal  than  his  love; 
therefore  we  add  the  adjective  or  term  'infinite'  to  the  essen- 
tials or  attributes  of  God  which  are  called  'infinite' — as  we 
say  of  the  Divine  Love  that  'it  is  infinite,'  not  that  the  esse  of 
God  is  pre-existent  to  his  essence  hut  because  it  enters  into  the 
essence  as  into  something  adjoined,  cohering  zcith  determining, 
forming,  and  at  the  same  time  exalting  it:"  non  quod  Esse 
Dei  praeexistat,  sed  quia  ingreditur  Essentiaiii  ut  adjunct- 
ivum  cohaerens,  determinans,  formans  et  simul  elevans. 

From  which  we  learn  that  the  infinite  is  more  universal  than 
the  essence  love,  only  in  the  sense  that  the  adjective  as  a  term 
is  more  universal  than  the  substantive  classified  by  it.  Red  is 
a  more  universal  term  than  flower  and  yet  we  define  or  limit 
flower  when  we  say  a  red  flower.  The  term  red  "determines" 
and  so  forms  the  substantive  flower.  So  infinite,  a  term  ap- 
plicable to  the  esse  of  God,  determines  and  forms  or  gives 
universality  to  love  as  the  essence  of  God.  But  love  we  see  to 
be  that  substance  which  is  infinite. 

The  eflFort  to  get  behind  the  idea  of  love  as  the  first  sub- 
stance is  like  that  to  arrive  at  some  thing  prior  to  life  itself, 
prior  to  force,  prior  to  volition  or  that  which  alone  moves  it- 
self. The  scientists  have  stopped  at  Force  as  the  ultimate  con- 
ception of  the  all-originating  source.  When  they  say — "Give 
us  Force  and  Matter"  it  is  evident  thev  mean — "Give  us  the 


J\ 


28 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


mover  and  the  things  moved  and  we  have  the  Universe."    "L' 
atom  et  la  Force — Voila  V  univers ;"  (Saigey  in  La  Physique 
Moderne).    In  resolving  the  atom  to  its  elementary  substance 
there  is  no  limit  to  its  conceivable  divisibility  so  that  there  is 
no  appreciable  fixed  bulk  of  stuff  constituting  the  ground  of 
matter.     We  use  the  atomic  symbol  to  express  such  but  we 
cannot  reach  it  in  fact.    The  ultimate  source  of  matter  would 
seem  to  resolve  itself  into  the  mathematical    point,    or    that 
which  according  to  its  definition  has  neither  length,  breadth  nor 
thicknes,  but  which  by  its  mation  evolves  or  creates  the  line, 
the  line  by  revolution  the  surface,  the  surface  by  revolution  the 
sphere,  etc.    Thus  the  origin  of  the  conception  of  space-filling 
mattef  seems  to  be  found  in  force  or  that  which  produces 
motion.     Now  there  is  but  one  self-originating  force  conceiv- 
able, namely,  that  of  volition.     Hence  it  seems  a  clearly  scien- 
tific deduction  that  love  as  the  originating  volition  is  the  primary 
substance.     The  moving  force  of  love  as  the  prime  substance 
is  instinctively  admitted  in  the  phrases  which  speak  of  man's 
acting  from,  or  being  "impelled,"  by  this  or  that  "motive;'* 
meaning  an  action  of  the  zcill;  as  also  by  our  naming  these 
love-    or    volition-beats,    "emotions"    and    "impulses."     That 
which  moves  and  sets  in  motion  is  love,  and  love  is  life ;  and  as 
the  life  must  precede  in  our  conception  the  thing  that  is  ani- 
mated or  made  to  live,  and  as  the  mover  must  precede  the  mov- 
ed, so  life  and  love  must  be  conceived  of  as.  prior  to  those 
fixed,  dead  and  in  themselves  motionless  forms  which  we  call 
the  material  substances.     Our  idea  of  substance,  drawn  from 
matter  is  of  something  solid,  inert,  impenetrable,  lifeless ;  but 
this  is  clearly  rather  the  form  or  the  appearance  of  substance 
to  our  senses  than  the  very  prime  substance  which  as  we  have 
seen    must    be    action  itself  and  life  itself.     So  Swedenborg 
speaks  of  fire  as  the  primary  substance  in  a  state  of  the  most 
intense  activity — and  the  scientists  have  come  to  speak  of  heat, 
force  and  mode  of  motion  as  equivalent  terms.    And  the  idea 
of  love,  the  counterpart  of  heat  in  the  spiritual  order,  as  the 
fitting  all  embracing  name  for  this  only  all  originating  motive- 
force  is  not  a  transcendental  or  figurative  one,  but  one  de- 
manded by  the  exactness  of  science. 


-  4 


r^ 


» 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE.  29 


VIII.     LOVE  IS  SUBSTANCE. 

For  we  have  now  to  notice  that  what  we  sensuously  and  ob- 
jectively know  of  substance  in  matter  is  not  the  pure  sub- 
stance itself  but  the  form  of  substance,  and  that  of  substance  it- 
self we  have  a  conscious  perception,  or  feeling,  namely,  that 
it  is  life.  It  is  a  part  of  the  inverted  order  of  our  human 
knowledge  as  finite — and  so  of  our  human  science,  that  we 
.•should  think  we  know  what  we  do  not  know  and  that  we  should 
deny  or  call  unknowable  that  which  we  are  more  sure  of  than 
anything  else.  Thus  the  scientists  say,  we  know  what  matter 
is  because  our  senses  tell  us,  and  it  is  therefore  the  only  know- 
able  substance ;  whereas  the  truth  is,  the  substance  of  matter 
does  not  appeal  to  the  senses  at  all,  we  neither  can  feel  it,  taste 
it,  measure  it  nor  weigh  it.  What  our  senses  have  to  do  with  is 
the  appearances,  or  the  forms  which  this  ever  living,  ever  mov- 
ing substance  assumes  to  them.  Thus  it  is  form,  and  form  only, 
that  we  know  in  matter  or  have  a  scientia  of,  and  the  science 
of  matter  is  not  a  knowledge  of  substances  at  all  but  of  the 
forms  and  appearances  of  substances. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  agnostic  scientist  says,  "of  that  which 
is  beyond' the  veil  of  phenomena,  or  beyond  the  testimony  of 
our  senses  we  know  nothing;  we  acknowledge  that  something 
is  there  but  what  that  something  is  we  know  not."  And  yet  in 
a  true  sense — that  something  beyond  is  the  only  thing  that  all 
men.  Agnostics  as  well  as  others,  do  know  and  know  most 
intimately,  and  that  is  life.  If  there  is  anything  that  every 
human  being  knows  really, — by  conscious  perception  of  it, 
that  is,  instead  of  by  mere  learned  definitions  of  it, — it  is  life. 
And  this  is  the  fundamental  knowledge  because  it  is  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  substance  itself.  Out  of  this  grow  and  on  this  rest 
all  other  knowledges  and  all  proofs  and  certainties.  The 
scientific  or  sensuous  knowledge  is  but  a  knowledge  of  the 
forms  of  this  substance  or  of  the  phenomena  of  this  life. 
Descartes  deduced  his  first  certainty  '7  am"  from  the  con- 
sciousness of  his  thinking — cogito  ergo  sum.  He  did  not  de- 
rive his  being  from  his  thinking  but  his  certainty  of  his  being; 
and  a  strictly  true  statement  of  what  he  meant  would  be; — I 


30 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE 


think;  therefore  I  am  certain  that  I  am.  But  he  might  have 
said  with  perfect  accuracy,  "I  love;  therefore  I  am,"  for  his 
loving  was  his  ver>^  life  or  being  itself. 

We  see  therefore  that  knowledge  applies  to  the  form  of 
things  just  as  feeling  or  perception  does  to  their  substance. 
We  feel  that  a  thing  is ;  we  know  zchat  it  is ;  we  feel  or  perceive 
its  substance ;  we  know  its  form.  Our  perception  of  the  sub- 
stance of  sensible  objects  is  indeed  an  inferred  knowledge 
rather  than  a  direct  one.  We  cannot  say  that  we  feel  or  per- 
ceive the  substance  of  an  orange;  all  that  we  know  is  the 
forms  by  which  that  substance  appeals  to  our  various  senses, 
thus  as  round,  yellow,  sweet,  etc.  But  because  our  primary 
knowledge  is  composed  of  a  perception  of  our  own  life  as  the 
SUBSTANCE  to  which  all  sensuous  knowledge  subserves  as  form, 
therefore  we  infer  that  within  all  forms  which  we  know  there 
must  be  equally  a  substance. 

In  other  words,  our  first  immediate  knowledge  of  ourselves 
in  consciousness  tells  us  that  life  presents  itself  to  ourself  as 
something  to  be  known ;  and  that  that  presentation  of  life  to 
knowledge  is  by  life's  assuming  some  form  to  our  sense,  at 
least,  if  not  to  our  thinking.  Thus  our  first  knowledge  is  that 
substance  has  form— and  our  first  and  universal  and  abiding 
inference  is  that  all  forms  are  forms  of  an  actual  or  a  possible 
substance.    Hence  our  belief  in  the  phenomenal  world. 

IX.     WISDOiM  THE  FIRST  FORM. 

We  have  seen  that  love  is  the  necessary  essence  of  being,  so 
far  as  being  exists  or  stands  forth  and  causes  other  things  to 
exist  or  be  created.  And  this  love  is  life ;  or  it  is  esse  conceiv- 
ed of  as  in  motion  and  moving  to  an  end.  Life,  motion,  force, 
all  these  suggest  the  primary  substance  and  activitv  out  of 
which  a  world  of  things  indiscriminately  might  come ;  but  a 
chosen,  definite  workl,  a  world  with  an  order  and  form,  a 
cosmos,  could  only  come  from  this  life,  motion  or  force  di- 
rected to  an  end;  and  the  only  name  for  this  force  and  mo- 
tion directed  to  an  end  is  love.  For  love  is  not  indiscrimin- 
ate; there  can  be  no  love  except  for  a  certain  thing  to  be 
loved. 


A 


. 


•  V  * 


'J 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


31 


From  this  all-begetting  and  all-originating  love  there  comes 
the  first  direction  of  the  motion  to  an  end — this  is  the  begetting 
or  the  evolution  of  form  out  of  substance.  It  is  in  the  phy- 
sical plane  the  motion  of  the  first  point  into  the  line,  or  the 
defining  of  space,  that  gives  us  the  element  of  natural  or 
physical  shape  and  bulk,  and  so  gives  us  what  we  know  as 
matter. 

But  the  self-direction  of  love  is  its  knowledge  how  or  by 
what  intermediate  causes  to  produce  its  effect,  and  this  knowl- 
edge how  as  pertaining  to  love  itself  is  nothing  else  than  the 
sapientia,  (from  "sapere"  —  to  know  how)  wisdom.  Wisdom 
is,  therefore,  the  first  product  and  the  form  of  love;  it  is  as 
necessary  a  counterpart  of  love  as  love  is- of  pure  being;  for  as 
pure  being  could  never  exist  or  stand  forth  in  creation  without 
love  as  the  first  motor,  so  could  love  never  proceed  to  the  creat- 
ing of  its  own  objects  without  the  wisdom  by  which  out  of 
love's  own  substance  these  particular  things  are  to  be  formed. 
Therefore,  by  this  wisdom,  called  in  revelation  the  Word  or  the 
Logos,  all  things  were  made  that  were  made ;  and  this  same 
wisdom  or  Word  is  the  very  and  only  Form  in  which  Love,  or 
the  primary  Substance,  can  reveal  itself  to  the  world  of  its  own 
creatures. 

X.     DIVINE  PERSONALITY. 

We  see,  therefore,  that  the  necessary  postulate  that  "the  esse 
exists"  renders  equally  necessary  the  postulate  that  the  pri- 
mary substance,  or  that  the  very  essence  of  being  is  love, 
and  that  the  very  form  of  that  essence  is  wisdom.  Love's  pro- 
cession through  cause  to  its  own  eflFect  is  law  itself,  and  order 
itself.  Law  is  derived  from  no  other  source  than  love's  self- 
knowledge;  and  love's  only  begotten  law  is  wisdom.  The 
existence  of  the  visible  universe,  therefore,  compels  our  rational 
assent  to  these  propositions : 

I.  That  existence  implies  esse,  pure  being  that  exists. 

II.  The  pure  being  or  esse,  in  order  to  exist  or  stand  forth 
from  itself  must  be  self-moved  to  this  end. 

III.  This  self-motion  exists  only  in  volition,  and  volition  or 
that  motion  self-determined  to  an  end,  we  name  love. 


32 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


IV.  But  self-motion  to  an  end  is  likewise  self -direction, 
which  is  the  origin  of  form  and  of  law. 

V.  The  self-given  form  or  law  of  the  original  e-motion  of 
pure  being — love — is  wisdom. 

VI.  Therefore,  love  and  wisdom  constitute  the  first  sub- 
stance and  first  form,  or  they  are  Substance  itself  and  Form 
itself,  from  which  are  all  finite  substances  and  forms.  In  these 
alone  pure  Esse  exists,  and  from  these  alone  can  a  world  of 
things  be  produced. 

VII.  But  love  and  wisdom  are  human  or  what  we  can  alone 
name  personal  attributes.  They  constitute  our  idea  of  person, 
and  we  can  conceive  of  them  only  as  residing  in  a  person. 

VIII.  Hence  the  first  substance,  force,  motion,  and  life, 
from  which  is  all  finite  existence,  is  personal  substance,  force, 
motion  and  life. 

IX.  But  the  only  name  of  such  an  original  being  of  love 
and  wisdom,  or  all  originating  Person  is  God. 

X.  God,  therefore,  is  the  Esse  existing,  or  Pure  Being 
standing  forth  in  knowable  form,  the  Divine-Human. 

We  have  thus  from  the  doctrine  of  the  pure  being,  unknow- 
able except  as  to  infinity  and  eternity,  arrived  at  the  doctrine  of 
God,  knowable  because  existing,  standing  forth  to  our  knowl- 
edge, as  not  only  divine  Substance,  but  as  divine  Form,  as 
divine  Love  and  divine  Wisdom,  and,  as,  therefore,  the  Father 
and  creator  of  all  worlds  and  all  things.  We  are  thus  prepared 
intellectually,  that  is,  with  rational  assent,  to  enter  into  these 
declarations  of  Swedenborg,  regarding  the  Divine  essence. — 
T,  C.  R.  36. 

I.  God  is  Love  itself  and  wisdom  itself,  and  these  two  con- 
stitute his  essence. 

II.  God  is  good  itself  and  truth  itself,  because  good  is  of 
love  and  truth  is  of  wisdom. 

III.  Love  itself  and  wisdom  itself  are  Life  itself,  which  is 
life  in  itself. 

IV.  Love  and  wisdom  in  God  make  one. 
And  further :   T.  C.  R.  49 ; 

V.  As  infinity,  immensity,  and  eternity  appertain  to  the 
Divine  Esse,  so  omnipotence,  omniscience  and  omnipresence  ap- 
pertain to  the  Divine  Essence,  and  these  three  are  properties  of 


. 


r'i 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


53 


the  Divine  Wisdom  derived  from  the  Divine  Love.  For  these 
three  proceed  from  the  Divine  Love  and  Wisdom  much  in  the 
same  maner  as  the  power  and  presence  of  the  sun  of  this  world, 
and  in  all  its  parts  proceed  from  the  sun's  heat  and  light. 

XL    OMNIPOTENCE,  OMNIPRESENCE,  OMNIS- 
CIENCE. 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  entire  doctrine  of  God,  namely,  as 
to  His  Divine  Essence,  which  is  Love  and  Wisdom,  and  His 
divine  properties,  which  are  omnipotence,  omnipresence  and 
omniscience,  and  we  are  to  note  that  these  properties  are  those 
of  the  Divine  Wisdom  as  derived  from  the  Divine  Love.  This 
means,  in  other  words,  that  God  is  all  powerful  because  Divine 
Wisdom  derived  from  divine  Love  has  all  the  ability  there  is. 
Not  only  is  knowledge  power,  but  all  power  is  in  the  knowing 
how  to  do  the  behests  of  volition.  It  means  that  God  is  all- 
wise  because  the  divine  Wisdom  derived  from  the  divine  Love 
is  all-wise,  knowing,  as  it  must,  all  the  ends  of  divine  Love. 
It  means  that  God  is  everywhere  present  because  the  divine 
Wisdom  derived  from  the  divine  Love  is  present  in  everything 
that  love  has  created,  and  is  instrumental  to  this  very  creation 
and  preservation  in  existence  of  these  several  things. 

XII.    WHAT  IS  ORDER? 

Again,  Swedenborg  says:  'The  omnipotence,  omniscience 
and  omnipresence  of  God  cannot  be  known  until  it  be  known 
what  is  meant  by  order  and  until  it  be  ascertained  that  God  is 
order,  and  that  He  introduced  order  into  the  universe  and  all  its 
parts  at  the  creation.  The  omnipotence  of  God  in  the  universe 
and  all  its  parts  proceeds  and  operates  according  to  the  laws  of 
His  own  order." 

''Order  is  the  quality  of  the  disposition,  determination  and 
activity  of  the  parts,  substances  or  entities,  which  constitute 
the  form  of  a  thing,  and  whereupon  its  state  depends ;  the  per- 
fection of  which  (state)  is  produced  by  wisdom  operating  by 
love.  By  substance  we  mean  at  the  same  time  form  because 
every  substance  is  a  form,  and  the  quality  of  a  form  is  its  state, 
the  perfection  or  imperfection  of  which  results  from  order." 


34 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE 


"God  is  order  because  He  is  Substance  itself  and  Form  itself. 
He  is  substance  because  all  things  that  subsist  derived  their  ex- 
istence originally,  and  continue  to  derive  it,  from  Him  ;  and  He 
is  Form  because  all  the  quality  of  substances  did  originally  and 
does  arise  still  from  Him,  and  quality  can  only  be  derived  from 
form. 

"Now  as  God  is  the  very,  the  one  only  and  the  first  Sub- 
stance and  Form,  and  at  the  same  time  the  very  and  only  Love 
and  the  very  and  only  Wisdom,  and  since  wisdom  operating 
from  love  constitutes  form,  and  its  state  and  quality  is  accord- 
ing to  the  order  inherent  in  it,  it  necessarily  follows  that  God  is 
order  itself,  and  consequently  that  He  introduced  order  both 
into  the  universe  and  into  all  its  parts,  and  that  He  introduced 
the  most  perfect  order. 

"God  by  virtue  of  his  omnipotence  cannot  effect  such  things 
as  are  contrary  to  the  laws  of  his  own  order  established  in  the 
universe  or  prescribed  in  the  nature  of  every  man."  • 

"That  God  perceives,  sees  and  knozi's  all  things  even  to  the 
most  minute  which  are  done  according  to  order  is  a  conse- 
quence of  the  order  of  nature  zvhich  derives  its  universality 
from  the  singidars  of  which  it  is  composed;  for  singulars,  con- 
sidered collectively,  are  termed  a  universal  just  as  particulars 
considered  collectively  are  called  a  whole;  and  the  universal 
together  with  all  its  component  parts  is  a  work  that  coheres 
together  as  one,  so  that  no  one  part  can  be  touched  and  affect- 
ed but  all  the  rest  have  some  perception  of  it."  — T,  C.  R., 
52-60.  ^ 

Xni.    THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  OPPOSITES. 

God  is  also  present  with  things  which  are  not  in  the  order  of 
creation,  by  the  perception  of  the  relation  of  such  things  to 
such  order.  He  is  also  cognizant  of  things  which  are  not  in 
order,  by  his  perception  of  opposites,  or  of  their  opposition  to 
that  order. 

God  is  omnipresent  in  all  the  gradations  of  his  own  order 
from  first  to  last,  therefore,  in  all  the  created  world,  and  all  its 
minutest  particulars ;  for  it  is  from  single  things  being  in  order 
that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  universal  order.  The  presence  of 
God  in  the  single  things  of  order  is,  therefore,  at  the  same  time 


jfl  fc. 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


35 


>*?••• 


•'•< 


the  omnipresence  of  God  in  the  universal  order  and  in  all 
creation.  God  is  present  in  the  single  things  of  order  just  as 
the  heat  and  light  of  the  natural  sun  are  present  in  every  least 
thing  that  has  physical  being,  for  as  we  have  seen  the  divine 
Wisdom  derived  from  the  Love  itself  creates  and  gives  order 
to  all  things.  God,  therefore,  by  virtue  of  his  order  and  not  by 
virtue  of  his  spatial  extension,  is  present  in  everything  of  the 
created  universe.  God  is  not  extended  any  more  than  we 
can  speak  of  love  or  wisdom  as  extended;  and  yet  God  is  in 
all  space  and  everywhere  because  his  order,  the  form  impress- 
ed on  the  world  from  his  ever-creating  and  ever-present  love 
and  wisdom,  is  everywhere.  What  we  say  figuratively  or 
lifter  an  image  of  the  truth  in  regard  to  a  great  work  which  a 
man  has  planned  or  which  he  directs  and  governs,  namely,  that 
^'the  man  is  everywhere  in  it,"  means  that  his  mind  has  shaped 
its  every  detail,  and  is  constantly  aware  of  what  is  being  done. 
So  we  may  say,  not  figuratively,  but  really  because  of  that  fore- 
most reality  from  which  are  borrowed  all  human  figures  and 
images,  that  God  although  not  extended  in  space,  because  not 
created,  is  nevertheless  present  in  all  space  in  all  the  gradations 
of  his  own  order. — See  T.  C.  R.,  63. 

XIV.    "IN  SPACE  WITHOUT  SPACE." 

This  being  present  in  space  without  spatial  attributes,  is  be- 
coming a  fact  or  a  condition  more  easy  for  us  to  realize,  owing 
to  the  marvellous  modern  inventions  by  which  space  and  time 
seem  practically  annhilated  so  far  as  mental  contact  is  concern- 
ed, even  when  the  bodily  subjects  of  this  contact  are  as  re- 
motely fixed  in  space  as  ever.  The  magnetic  or  aural  wave 
Stcems  to  travel  with  almost  the  rapidity  of  thought  itself,  so 
that  the  personal  presence  of  beings  hundreds  of  miles  apart  is 
as  immediate  almost  as  their  mental  presence  by  mutual  recol- 
lection. Moreover,  it  is  said  that  there  are  visible  stars  in  our 
firmament  so  distant  that  a  ray  of  light  coming  from  them  to 
us  occupies  thousands  of  years,  and  that  consequently  when 
to-night  we  look  at  one  of  those  stars  we  are  actually  "in  time 
without  time,"  since  we  are  beholding  in  this  present  moment 
to-night  things  which  are  happening  three  thousand  years  ago, 
or  in  the  time  of  King  David  or  of  the  Trojan  War.    If,  then, 


36 


BEING  AND  EXISTENCE. 


a  "thousand  years  may  become  but  as  yesterday"  in  the  sight 
of  even  finite  man,  how  much  more  must  it  be  so  in  the  case  of 
the  infinite  Wisdom.  Not  that  we  should,  however,  think  of 
the  Divine  as  being  "not  in  space"  because  located  somewhere 
.  above  or  out  of  space,  and  so  as  communicating  wi^h  us  by 
thought  or  otherwise  from  afar  off;  but  rather  is  rented  to 
space  just  as  the  idea  and  motion  of  a  work  of  art  is  rel  tted  to 
every  part  of  the  work,  or  as  the  thought  of  a  writer  is  ii.  very 
word  and  on  every  page  of  his  book,  and  as  the  Hfe  of  man,  as 
his  voHtion  and  thought  are  in  every  part  of  his  body.  So  lay 
we  conceive  of  God  by  his  love  and  wisdom,  and,  there foi  ,  by 
his  order  or  what  the  scientist  calls  "law,"  being  present  in  all 
space  without  being  spatial,  and  thus  as  omnipresent  in  the 
whole  universe  of  his  creating. 

It  is  as  life,  as  the  substance,  the  essential  love  itself,  that 
God  truly  is  in  all  things  and  is  their  very  being;  but  it  is  by 
virtue  of  wisdom  as  the  form  of  all  forms  that  we  think  our-^^ 
selves  apart  from  God,  and  think  a  nature  outside  of  Him ;  and 
thus  we  think  a  space  which  He  is  not,  and  think  Him  afar  off. 
For  it  is  thought  that  makes  a  many,  and  thus  separates ;  while 
it  is  love  that  draws  together  and  makes  a  one.  And  God,  then, 
could  be  no  One,  such  as  love  demands,  that  is,  no  One  as 
the  union  of  many,  except  the  thought  had  made  the  many  by 
means  of  diverse  forms  and  qualities.  The  omnipresence  of 
God,  therefore,  is  not  only  that  of  the  Divine  order  or  law  in 
all  the  divine  things  of  creation,  but  it  is  that  of  his  own  divine 
love  in  all  the  forms  of  his  zvisdom.  It  is  the  presence,  there- 
fore, not  only  of  the  cause  in  all  the  effects  but  it  is  the 
presence  of  the  End  in  all  the  causes. 

Therefore,  we  arrive  at  a  rational  apprehension  of  the  com- 
plete doctrine  of  the  unity  of  God  as  set  forth  by  Swedenborg 
in  these  words  with  which  we  conclude:  "God  is  in  all  space 
without  space  and  in  all  time  without  time;  consequently  the 
universe  as  to  essence  and  order  is  the  fulness  of  God.  It 
follows,  therefore,  that  by  his  omnipresence  He  perceives  all 
things,  by  His  omniscience  He  provides  all  things,  by  His 
omnipotence  He  operates  all  things.  Hence  it  is  plain  that 
omnipresence,  omniscience  and  omnipotence  makes  a  one ;  or 
that  one  implies  the  other,  so  that  they  cannot  be  separated." — 
T.  C,  R.,  63. 


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Swedish  Royal  Academy  Edition 

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